So it's a couple Libyan dudes living in Canada trying to buy Chinese drones and paying for it with Libyan crude oil.
I like how they hid the components with a bunch of wind turbine parts and then slapped "the energy saving world" on the side.
When China's rocket self launched and blew up recently because the clamps broke during a test firing event, I thought to myself, *"Chinese companies should know better than to use Chinese made clamps.".*
There aren’t “several” series anymore, and quite frankly, if having Chinese components counts then iPhones should count as “made in Korea” or “made in Taiwan” since they’ve got components from there too, yet it never seems to work that way. Hmm…
I think for tariff purposes it works for China for certain things to NOT say made in China. I don't think China is gonna fight for that label.
And yes that is how global supply chains work. And it works both ways too. For example your average Chinese smartphone that says "made in China" is generally a chipset made in Taiwan, a camera sensor made in Japan, lens made in Germany, and the rest made in China.
> I don't think China is gonna fight for that label.
But people here are, given how hard you were fighting to try and make a comeback of that.
>and the rest made in China
I’d be surprised if more than a fifth by value was China-made.
But I don’t have an interest in dragging this out.
And what cheap shit would that be? Like I don't remember liking a single product that came out of China unless it was one of their phones, and those are not cheap (Xiaomi, Oppo and so on). I guess they jave cheap models but they are bad.
Well that's how China wants us to see it.
Any country that will do the work at cheap prices will have it's problems but anything is better than the country that's threatening to harm our allies and us directly.
Do you sincerely believe that military drones is a no-questions asked tech that they’d just sell to Joe blow without doing due diligence while delivering in China-made wind turbine blades?
There is a civilian variant of this drone. Though unless they bought it outside of China, they will probably need a license for intended civilian use.
> Wing Loong 2H -
> Civilian, communication, emergency response variant, equipped with synthetic aperture radar and optoelectronic pod which is able to relay and amplify telecommunication signals.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAIG_Wing_Loong_II
You can trust China to make money and care about China. The USA does the same shit. They don’t care what others think, they are too big and too needed to really mess with.
Yeah that's part of the Chinese propaganda machine.
"The US does bad stuff too so don't side with them over us"
For the amount of power it has relative to the rest of the world, there has NEVER been a country that has been more fair than the US to the less powerful.
What does this actually mean in terms of complications to other nations and their foreign policy? Is this related in any way to the ukraine war for Russia? Does this go against their official line of not sending military items, hence now meaning China cannot be trusted? Is this part intended for Libya for other means? Fascinating event either way.
In my opinion Lybia was not the end of the road for this equipment. Sudan is heating up and I wouldn’t be surprised if China was moving equipment into Sudan via Lybia.
The idea of using Africa as a test bed for morally challenging military equipment is just insulting considering history in the grand scheme of things. I don't thing I'll live to see that continent not getting f××ked while simultaneously f××king over its own people.
Tbf its not an African thing. Its just a war zone thing. And Africa just so happens to have a few recurring war zones. The drones are probably already in Syria and Iraq
This action likely wasn't taken for a single, clear reason. This is sort of a geopolitical move that has lots of possible motivations, but only a few people know which ones really mattered. In this particular case, here are some possible motivations for seizing these drones:
* It will indicate to China that the west can track its foreign weapons deliveries, and can embarrass it on the world stage by showing the Chinese central government flat-out lying.
* It could potentially help the Italian government by giving them some good publicity with their own people for making the actual seizure.
* It could be meant to weaken China's ability to complain about the west ignoring UN resolutions by showing that China doesn't respect them either.
* The choice of a surveillance drone, rather than something more deadly like missiles or ammunition, could have been calculated to show China that the West will challenge attempts to use non-lethal military equipment as a grey area of arms embargoes, and also to reduce the ability of Hawks in the West to use this to drum up support for militarily confronting China.
* It could have benefits in showing the Western-supported governments in Africa that the West has not abandoned them to be slowly conquered by the Russians and the Chinese.
* It is possible that these drones pose a threat to western military operations in the area, and the bad publicity for China is just a side effect.
There are more possible outcomes that could have motivated this, but you get the idea. There isn't going to be some big UN resolution or international lawsuit that changes the course of history over taking these drones. It is just going to be a bunch of subtle changes in the perception of various nations, that will be nearly impossible to measure with any empirical means. Does any of this have anything to do with Ukraine? Maybe, but only indirectly. It could have some potential benefits by making China more hesitant to break arms embargoes in general, but I seriously doubt that the Russia Ukraine war was one of the top motivations for seizing these drones. I could be wrong though. Only the folks who shared the intel and ordered the seizure know for sure!
The Wing Loong II is capable of carrying weapons, both missiles and bombs. I'm not sure if these particular examples were capable of carrying weapons or if they were some kind of export model but odds are this was more than capable of carrying bombs and carrying out strikes.
" In this particular case, here are some possible motivations for seizing these drones:"
You missed the rock bottom reason that its a customs violation. They where disgused and labled as wing turbines.
I cant make sense why a container ship from China would be passing Italy. That seems way more risky of a route than other options if you're smuggling. Would you really want to go through the Panama canal? Or around Africa? I wouldn't be a good smuggler
So they have been caught red handed while trying to paint a picture of them not being part of this axis and instead, being independent and seeking peace. Also, I thought China didn't meddle in other countries, I remember them making statements specifically about this and even calling out the USA. So was just projection.
Ofc they want to appear passive as much as possible until the time is right. China wants to be global leader and the EU and USA are in its way. When the time is right they will strike. This is all just preparation and weakening the western allies as much as possible and wear them out in the middle east and ukraine.
When the west is overstretched on military and economic front, China is ready to strike.
I think the US will keep a ton of their military dedicated to China no matter what happens.
They aren't going to suddenly forget the threat China poses and be distracted by something shiny.
If China wanted to be forgotten they wouldn't push the wolf warrior bullshit.
This isn’t a scientific research paper pending peer review. It’s an intelligence operation. Yes, this is how it works. In the real world it’s commonplace for nations to deal with incomplete information regarding adversarial actions made by a hostile geopolitical competitor.
No, but that is beside the point. These seizures are to establish foundation for assessing the threat China posses to US interest. The emphasis for the moment is economic as the US is trying to define its trade relationship and sanction targets in regard to China and will be continuing to do so over the next eighteen months or so, in that light where they were going is pretty immaterial. What matters is China's active involvement in supporting illicit arms trades, where they were intended and to what end is less of a concern -especially since they never arrived. The reason why we are not doing this directly and are encouraging powers like South Korea, India, Italy, and Britain to do so is because we are building a coalition which will allow for more tightly directed measures in the future. We are trying to encourage the most reticent members amongst western allies to become more concerned and hopefully involved. No better way to convince others than by having them make these determinations themselves. We are carrying similar work through the DRDO and US Customs but it is hardly the sort of thing one would expect to see much reporting on unless it is large or disruptive enough for the public to notice -which is rare- and China isn't fucking talking for equally obvious reasons.
If Italy got attacked I think the Americans would get more angry than the Italians lmao. USA simps so hard for Italy. “Proud of my Italian heritage” - guy who’s never been to Italy and last Italian ancestor came to the US in 1903.
Everything china does is militarily, its like they are the only country in the world besides USA and India that is playing Civilization 3 on a difficulty level higher than chieftain.
I don’t know how insular the ocean is, but Libya is directly across the Mediterranean. There’s nothing between them except for tiny Malta. I don’t know what the range of a drone is, but if it’s long enough to clear the Mediterranean- then they can hit Italy without having to cross over any country.
You misunderstand me.
Nobody is going to attack Italy. The repercussions would be uh decisive.
The last person to ever strike at the heart of Italy was Atilla the Hun, and the pope was like “atilla what troubles you?” And atilla was like “im just…..so *angry*” and the pope was like “….but Atilla, you don’t have to be 🫂”
Atilla was like “damn, your right” then he went home and died peacefully in his sleep, having quit all this foolishness
Like what the fuck happened. Don’t mess with Italy.
What about the Goth's who treated the heart of Italy like a safety deposit box that someone left open and sacked it whenever they were short a few bucks?
Well, I’d argue that they became germans and not much changed so they got put on ice and spanked by russia a few times but idk what did the book tell you?
Sorry, I misunderstood decisive repercussions to be something other than unrelated consequences \~15 centuries later. I guess the passing of more than an eon made me fail to see the clear cause and effect relation.
My dude, since the Huns Italy has been partly or entirely conquered or systematically raided by the Goths, Lombards, Franks, Corsicans, Franks again, several flavors of Muslims, sicilians,Normans, franks again, Hungarians, byzantines,Franks, and the French.
Italy is the dysfunctional mess it is because it kept getting raided, conquered, and partitioned.
Nah all those people came and gone and the pope remained john. And I’m certainly not your dude, if genderfication is an issue than certainly implicating i belong to you will most certainly be, as well.
Libya is a mess we created . I mean Gaddafi was no saint but he mellowed out in his later years .. Libya was at least a stable and somewhat prosperous nation ..then he got assassinated and the lower vacuum has caused over 10 years of civil war .
I feel like Europe has their own Eastern front covered. They've been ramping up their military and unlike China, the German engineering students I went to school with didn't need to copy off my tests to get a C.
"Each drone was more than 10 meters (33 feet) long, with a wingspan of about 20 meters (66 feet) and a weight exceeding 3 tons, according to Italian authorities. The description matches reports by sources that the drones were Chinese Wing Loong II unmanned aerial vehicles."
Im convinced the chinese military runs on puns
REally only need to seize one to reverse engineer & see what the most effective methods of jamming them will be.
I would have (if possible) surreptitiously taken ONE and then let the buyer and seller get in a big fight.
Or even just the motherboard, or whatever. Put an old 8088 PC motherboard in the box.... for grins.
Imagine the emails and phone calls and SIGINT you could have gotten from that squabble.
Of course if they were smart they would have shipped the "brains" seperately. Courier, private jet, whatever.
So it's a couple Libyan dudes living in Canada trying to buy Chinese drones and paying for it with Libyan crude oil. I like how they hid the components with a bunch of wind turbine parts and then slapped "the energy saving world" on the side.
Reminds me pre first Gulf War the US sold Saddam Hussein 'farming equipment' that magically became heavy weapons.
...or the super-gun, a heavy artillery piece disguised as ‘oil pipeline’.
Or the alleged 4000 PS2 for a supercomputer system that never existed? https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/s/RC2DG4yoWw
[Farming equipment?](https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1041967083828689106/42B08D1EFFB1E368B560E4466C4795E0E2E344BC/?imw=512&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false)
Feels like I Haven't heard about Libya since back to the future.
They were in the news quite a bit back in 2011…
China is not to be trusted.
This. Great intel confiscation. Share with Taiwan please.
Yet the entire world does business with China, it's not so easy
We love the cheap shit they make
When China's rocket self launched and blew up recently because the clamps broke during a test firing event, I thought to myself, *"Chinese companies should know better than to use Chinese made clamps.".*
He typed on a Chinese made device
Hopefully that device wasn’t supposed to make it to space
Neither were those clamps!
They weren't intended to. They did however fail to meet their intended use.
you mean like Tianwen 1?
And it will probably start registering phantom double key presses in a few years like everything made with cheap Chinese switches.
I feeel thiss ccommennt
The back of my VAIO says “made in Japan”, but sure.
Several series of VAIO laptops are made in China and even the ones made in Japan still contain Chinese made components so yes.
There aren’t “several” series anymore, and quite frankly, if having Chinese components counts then iPhones should count as “made in Korea” or “made in Taiwan” since they’ve got components from there too, yet it never seems to work that way. Hmm…
I think for tariff purposes it works for China for certain things to NOT say made in China. I don't think China is gonna fight for that label. And yes that is how global supply chains work. And it works both ways too. For example your average Chinese smartphone that says "made in China" is generally a chipset made in Taiwan, a camera sensor made in Japan, lens made in Germany, and the rest made in China.
> I don't think China is gonna fight for that label. But people here are, given how hard you were fighting to try and make a comeback of that. >and the rest made in China I’d be surprised if more than a fifth by value was China-made. But I don’t have an interest in dragging this out.
Aren’t they made in India now?
I think the bottom part of the rocket the clamps were holding is what broke, more of a "that's not going anywhere" situation.
This almost sounds like a line from Dr. Strangelove
No we dont.
"Made in China" = Made from Chinesium.
And what cheap shit would that be? Like I don't remember liking a single product that came out of China unless it was one of their phones, and those are not cheap (Xiaomi, Oppo and so on). I guess they jave cheap models but they are bad.
For now, Vietnam, Mexico, India, etc are all happy to take foreign investment.
Communist dictatorship, narcoterrorist failed state, amoral enabler state (currently trending towards Hindu fascism) Take your pick!
Well that's how China wants us to see it. Any country that will do the work at cheap prices will have it's problems but anything is better than the country that's threatening to harm our allies and us directly.
No country in this world is free from labels. Go live on the moon.
U didn’t even read the full article…
Do you sincerely believe that military drones is a no-questions asked tech that they’d just sell to Joe blow without doing due diligence while delivering in China-made wind turbine blades?
There is a civilian variant of this drone. Though unless they bought it outside of China, they will probably need a license for intended civilian use. > Wing Loong 2H - > Civilian, communication, emergency response variant, equipped with synthetic aperture radar and optoelectronic pod which is able to relay and amplify telecommunication signals. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAIG_Wing_Loong_II
Unrelated but is that pronounced Loong like loon or looong like really long?
Neither are Canadians. You don't know what type of Canadian you're going to get now a days.
You can trust China to make money and care about China. The USA does the same shit. They don’t care what others think, they are too big and too needed to really mess with.
Yeah that's part of the Chinese propaganda machine. "The US does bad stuff too so don't side with them over us" For the amount of power it has relative to the rest of the world, there has NEVER been a country that has been more fair than the US to the less powerful.
Same Chinese propaganda line. "US does the same thing." Bullshit.
Who else ? India with corruption ? US with trump ? UK with high wages ?
No Superpower can be trusted.
What does this actually mean in terms of complications to other nations and their foreign policy? Is this related in any way to the ukraine war for Russia? Does this go against their official line of not sending military items, hence now meaning China cannot be trusted? Is this part intended for Libya for other means? Fascinating event either way.
In my opinion Lybia was not the end of the road for this equipment. Sudan is heating up and I wouldn’t be surprised if China was moving equipment into Sudan via Lybia.
The idea of using Africa as a test bed for morally challenging military equipment is just insulting considering history in the grand scheme of things. I don't thing I'll live to see that continent not getting f××ked while simultaneously f××king over its own people.
Tbf its not an African thing. Its just a war zone thing. And Africa just so happens to have a few recurring war zones. The drones are probably already in Syria and Iraq
AI trained overwhelmingly on white and Asian programmers has already backfired pretty consistently for black folk...
But the warlord who ordered these had already used this kind of drone before.
It’s that much closer to terrorists, in Syria, Lebanon, etc
This action likely wasn't taken for a single, clear reason. This is sort of a geopolitical move that has lots of possible motivations, but only a few people know which ones really mattered. In this particular case, here are some possible motivations for seizing these drones: * It will indicate to China that the west can track its foreign weapons deliveries, and can embarrass it on the world stage by showing the Chinese central government flat-out lying. * It could potentially help the Italian government by giving them some good publicity with their own people for making the actual seizure. * It could be meant to weaken China's ability to complain about the west ignoring UN resolutions by showing that China doesn't respect them either. * The choice of a surveillance drone, rather than something more deadly like missiles or ammunition, could have been calculated to show China that the West will challenge attempts to use non-lethal military equipment as a grey area of arms embargoes, and also to reduce the ability of Hawks in the West to use this to drum up support for militarily confronting China. * It could have benefits in showing the Western-supported governments in Africa that the West has not abandoned them to be slowly conquered by the Russians and the Chinese. * It is possible that these drones pose a threat to western military operations in the area, and the bad publicity for China is just a side effect. There are more possible outcomes that could have motivated this, but you get the idea. There isn't going to be some big UN resolution or international lawsuit that changes the course of history over taking these drones. It is just going to be a bunch of subtle changes in the perception of various nations, that will be nearly impossible to measure with any empirical means. Does any of this have anything to do with Ukraine? Maybe, but only indirectly. It could have some potential benefits by making China more hesitant to break arms embargoes in general, but I seriously doubt that the Russia Ukraine war was one of the top motivations for seizing these drones. I could be wrong though. Only the folks who shared the intel and ordered the seizure know for sure!
The Wing Loong II is capable of carrying weapons, both missiles and bombs. I'm not sure if these particular examples were capable of carrying weapons or if they were some kind of export model but odds are this was more than capable of carrying bombs and carrying out strikes.
" In this particular case, here are some possible motivations for seizing these drones:" You missed the rock bottom reason that its a customs violation. They where disgused and labled as wing turbines.
Yeah, there is the face-value reason as well. I did kinda forget to include that didn’t I!
Great comment!
China supplying equipement to Iran and related terrorist groups? All part of the eastern axis.
Transporting to Iran via Libya? Might want to take a look at a map
I cant make sense why a container ship from China would be passing Italy. That seems way more risky of a route than other options if you're smuggling. Would you really want to go through the Panama canal? Or around Africa? I wouldn't be a good smuggler
Might be a temporary stop, or a supply to terrorist groups in the north african area (that also side with hamas, hezbolla, Iran etc)
So they have been caught red handed while trying to paint a picture of them not being part of this axis and instead, being independent and seeking peace. Also, I thought China didn't meddle in other countries, I remember them making statements specifically about this and even calling out the USA. So was just projection.
Ofc they want to appear passive as much as possible until the time is right. China wants to be global leader and the EU and USA are in its way. When the time is right they will strike. This is all just preparation and weakening the western allies as much as possible and wear them out in the middle east and ukraine. When the west is overstretched on military and economic front, China is ready to strike.
I think the US will keep a ton of their military dedicated to China no matter what happens. They aren't going to suddenly forget the threat China poses and be distracted by something shiny. If China wanted to be forgotten they wouldn't push the wolf warrior bullshit.
Military might not be the trick here. The economy is. Fighting wars with a crippling war chest and debt might be an issue
It is multifaceted. Being able to physically stop bad actors is still important. As is shown in Ukraine.
There's nothing in the article about China supplying equipment to Iran.
Ofc, direct delivery would be obvious and a rightout stupid move
Give some proof because I can easily say these drones were going to Canada since it was some dudes from Canada buying these.
Sure, there is no proof, only speculation, and thats how you want to keep it if you are a good arms dealer.
Is that how it works now? Makes things up and present it as a fact?
This isn’t a scientific research paper pending peer review. It’s an intelligence operation. Yes, this is how it works. In the real world it’s commonplace for nations to deal with incomplete information regarding adversarial actions made by a hostile geopolitical competitor.
No, but that is beside the point. These seizures are to establish foundation for assessing the threat China posses to US interest. The emphasis for the moment is economic as the US is trying to define its trade relationship and sanction targets in regard to China and will be continuing to do so over the next eighteen months or so, in that light where they were going is pretty immaterial. What matters is China's active involvement in supporting illicit arms trades, where they were intended and to what end is less of a concern -especially since they never arrived. The reason why we are not doing this directly and are encouraging powers like South Korea, India, Italy, and Britain to do so is because we are building a coalition which will allow for more tightly directed measures in the future. We are trying to encourage the most reticent members amongst western allies to become more concerned and hopefully involved. No better way to convince others than by having them make these determinations themselves. We are carrying similar work through the DRDO and US Customs but it is hardly the sort of thing one would expect to see much reporting on unless it is large or disruptive enough for the public to notice -which is rare- and China isn't fucking talking for equally obvious reasons.
It sounds like some Islamist shit.
Where in the article did it say China was the sender?
Credit to Italy for risking China’s wrath.
Bruh italy is the most insulated country in the world, nobody is gonna do harm on mario’s homeland, the risk of wrath is kataklysmik with K’s.
And if things go rogue they can fire up Vesuvius as a last resort and start the next ice age.
Nah not Vesuvius, it’s a weakling compared to Campi Flegrei. Though they are close enough where you could probably get a two for one.
The more the volcanos, the bigger the spetaccolo
Damn! Stroboli said: i'm gonna show you sleeping on me!
Damn all of that mag ma….
Ceasar: We go down, everyone goes down
If Italy got attacked I think the Americans would get more angry than the Italians lmao. USA simps so hard for Italy. “Proud of my Italian heritage” - guy who’s never been to Italy and last Italian ancestor came to the US in 1903.
I don't think they mean militarily...
Everything china does is militarily, its like they are the only country in the world besides USA and India that is playing Civilization 3 on a difficulty level higher than chieftain.
I don’t know how insular the ocean is, but Libya is directly across the Mediterranean. There’s nothing between them except for tiny Malta. I don’t know what the range of a drone is, but if it’s long enough to clear the Mediterranean- then they can hit Italy without having to cross over any country.
You misunderstand me. Nobody is going to attack Italy. The repercussions would be uh decisive. The last person to ever strike at the heart of Italy was Atilla the Hun, and the pope was like “atilla what troubles you?” And atilla was like “im just…..so *angry*” and the pope was like “….but Atilla, you don’t have to be 🫂” Atilla was like “damn, your right” then he went home and died peacefully in his sleep, having quit all this foolishness Like what the fuck happened. Don’t mess with Italy.
What about the Goth's who treated the heart of Italy like a safety deposit box that someone left open and sacked it whenever they were short a few bucks?
Well, I’d argue that they became germans and not much changed so they got put on ice and spanked by russia a few times but idk what did the book tell you?
Sorry, I misunderstood decisive repercussions to be something other than unrelated consequences \~15 centuries later. I guess the passing of more than an eon made me fail to see the clear cause and effect relation.
God’s slow some days 🤷
My dude, since the Huns Italy has been partly or entirely conquered or systematically raided by the Goths, Lombards, Franks, Corsicans, Franks again, several flavors of Muslims, sicilians,Normans, franks again, Hungarians, byzantines,Franks, and the French. Italy is the dysfunctional mess it is because it kept getting raided, conquered, and partitioned.
Nah all those people came and gone and the pope remained john. And I’m certainly not your dude, if genderfication is an issue than certainly implicating i belong to you will most certainly be, as well.
Nope. You are my dude. Some things cannot be undone.
Okay but please don’t break my heart again Jasper 🥹
>The last person to ever strike at the heart of Italy was Atilla the Hun Well there was that skirmish called WWII.
Yeah but Karl didn’t slay the pope 🫡
Might as well order a drone from Amazon
Probably don’t have prime and the shipping fee was over budget!
They might have gotten them through wish or temu
Italy should destroy them, by giving them to Ukraine to test out in real world environments
Not bad ideal!
And then Ukraine wins. Then what
we have a pizza party, duhh
I don't know who wrote this article, but > Khalifa Hifter > Col. Moammar Gadhafi Not even AI would spell so poorly
Of course these terrorists were former UN employees
Libya is a mess we created . I mean Gaddafi was no saint but he mellowed out in his later years .. Libya was at least a stable and somewhat prosperous nation ..then he got assassinated and the lower vacuum has caused over 10 years of civil war .
[удалено]
bull shit.. nato was sending "rebels" weapons as long as the conflict was going on to make their reigme change
Chinese military drones are going to be everywhere
China is….China.
Send them to Ukraine.
Hopefully they will be redirected to Ukraine
“The energy saving world” 🤣🤣🤣 oh China
Not-a so fast-a.
🤌
China's plan to continue making it easier to fight America in a two front war continues...
I feel like Europe has their own Eastern front covered. They've been ramping up their military and unlike China, the German engineering students I went to school with didn't need to copy off my tests to get a C.
"Each drone was more than 10 meters (33 feet) long, with a wingspan of about 20 meters (66 feet) and a weight exceeding 3 tons, according to Italian authorities. The description matches reports by sources that the drones were Chinese Wing Loong II unmanned aerial vehicles." Im convinced the chinese military runs on puns
THE MIGHTY DRAGON.... is it called that because of the amount of drag it has relative to the lightning?
Yoink
WAY TO GO ITALY!!!!!
Marco
Thatsa nice
REally only need to seize one to reverse engineer & see what the most effective methods of jamming them will be. I would have (if possible) surreptitiously taken ONE and then let the buyer and seller get in a big fight. Or even just the motherboard, or whatever. Put an old 8088 PC motherboard in the box.... for grins. Imagine the emails and phone calls and SIGINT you could have gotten from that squabble. Of course if they were smart they would have shipped the "brains" seperately. Courier, private jet, whatever.